HomeMy WebLinkAboutNovember 17, 2014COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY
OF JEFFERSONVILLE, INDIANA
November 17, 2014
The Common Council of the City of Jeffersonville, Indiana met in regular session in Room 101, SOO
Quartermaster Court, Jeffersonville, Indiana at 7:OOpm, on Monday, November 17, 2014.
Council President Julius called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. President Julius asked those in
attendance to stand as Councilperson Samuel gave the Invocation. President Julius then led all those
present in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
The roll call and those present were: Councilperson Zastawny, Councilperson Payne, Councilperson
Sellers, Council Vice President Gill, Councilperson Glover, Council President Julius, Councilperson
Samuel, and Councilperson Owen_ Absent was Councilperson Smith.
MINUTES TO BE APPROVED:
Councilperson Owen made a motion to APPROVE the minutes from the regular Council meeting on
November 3, 2014, with Vice President Gill seconding, PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA:
Council President Julius stated that items needing taken off were number 3 under New Business
because Jim Epperson from Clark -Floyd Tourism would rather be put on for the next meeting, 6 and 6A
is a public hearing for a tract of land and Shane Corbin wants that taken off because it is going back to
Planning and Zoning, and number 7, Kelly Phillips for Flow International Corporation asked that she be
taken off.
Councilperson Owen made a motion to APPROVE the agenda, with Vice President Gill seconding,
PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
CLAIMS TO BE APPROVED:
General Claims: Controller Amy Deering presented the general claims list in the amount of 5680,875.47.
There was one hand carried claim for a fire truck lease payment for 5138,321.79_ The new total is
5819,197.26. Councilperson Sellers stated that she was making a motion to wait to pay Mr. Lovan until
he signed the Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement. Which is the Indiana Code 35-44-1-3. The Board
of Public Works has to vote on this Wednesday before we can do anything. Vice President Gill stated
that she went through all the claims and he did exactly what they asked him to do, she was impressed.
Vice President Gill made a motion to APPROVE the amended general claims list in the amount of
5819,197.26 with Councilperson Owen seconding, PASSING on a vote of 7-0-1. Council President Julius
abstains.
REPORT OF THE CLERK: None at this time.
A. UNFINISHED BUSINESS:
1- Amy Deering — 2014 —0R-56 An Ordinance Transferring Certain Funds Within the Same
Department: Approved on First and Second Reading last meeting. Need approval for the
amendments made because there are some new items. All the park items are new and the last
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item was some new vehicles. Councilperson Samuel made a motion to PASS 2014 -OR -56 on the
Final Reading, with Councilperson Payne seconding, PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
B. NEW BUSINESS:
1. Rob Waiz— PUBLIC HEARING on Resolution for Waiver of Non -Compliance for Idemitsu
Lubricants America Corporation Real Property and Person Property Tax Abatement: Kelly
Phillips introduced Kathleen Crawley and Tammy Waltz with Idemitsu. We are asking for a one
year extension for their CF -1 Filing for the completion of the project that they came and
presented in 2011. They have been working toward their goal, but would like one more year to
reach it. Ms. Crawley and Ms. Waltz spoke briefly about their project. They request an
extension of one year for the personal property portion of the project. The project is coming in
higher than estimated. More time is needed to come up with the personal property portion
numbers, which will have higher numbers. Ms. Phillips wanted to note that the CF -1 form left
out the IT Equipment portion for $192,000.00. It was in the original abatement that was
approved in 2011, just not on this form.
1A. 2014-R-21 A Resolution Approving Waiver of Non -Compliance for Indemitsu Lubricants
America Corporation Real and Personal Property Tax Abatement: Councilperson Zastawny made a
motion to APPROVE 2014-R-21, with Councilperson Samuel seconding, PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
Ms. Crawley and Ms. Waltz thanked Council.
2. Jeff Frey, President Fire Merit Board- Fired Merit Board 2014 Certified Promotional List: This
list is for two years. We have very good candidates and the testing went very well.
Drew Adams is leaving us and we've signed on Nathan Masingo as the new attorney; all
done through the Board. Lynn Ackerman is resigning, a Union Rep. So we will be
gaining a new attorney and member on the Board. Councilperson Owen made a motion to
APPROVE, with Vice President Gill seconding, PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
3. Dennis Julius - Jim Epperson, Executive Director Clark -Floyd Counties Convention -Tourism
Bureau. Advertising Jeffersonville during Bridge Construction: (taken off agenda)
4. Matt Owen — 2014 -OR -57 An Ordinance Abolishing the Jeffersonville City Court of the City of
Jeffersonville, Indiana: I thought it was prudent that we discuss this and find out what we are
doing before the end of the year. Trying to keep up with State Statutes. The case load has gone
down, costs have gone up. I think that it is important to realize that not all the cases that come
through this court are Jeffersonville cases. It is my understanding that any case can dome
through this court if the county deems it and that is what Jeffersonville City taxpayers are paying
for. The court can't hear felonies or appeals cases, all of which can be heard on the county level.
When you look at everything on paper, black and white, for me it is a simple vote and not a
service the tax payers should take up. It is not a service to the city. Councilperson Samuels
made a comment that we were looking through one lens- revenue versus expenses. Another
lens is the value added, what it brings to the city or residents. Spoke to the police chief to see
what the benefits might be to the police. Have not heard back from the chief. Concerned about
what it would do the county, as they are overburdened and there is a move to get a magistrate
and there is support and that will probably happen for the county. Paid for by state dollars, not
local. Clarksville City Court approximately costs their town $5,000.00. I don't know about the
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numbers. I still want to get feedback from the chief and a couple people locally to see what
values or services are added that we are not aware of. Councilperson Owen added this is not
uncommon, it is happening across the state. This is a trend going on across the state.
Sellersburg and Charlestown did away with their city courts. If we pass this before the end of
the year, it does not immediately end the court, it will remain open until the end of Judge
Pierce's term, the end of 2015. But Indiana Code requires we do it this year, not next year.
Councilperson Zastawny wants to know what the difference is if Clarksville is talking only
$5,000.00, that is a huge difference. Councilperson Sellers said ours is over $400,000.00 so she
is very curious as to how they are doing this. Vice President Gill passed out a handout from
Steve Stewart's Office that he provided to council just last week and discussed it. Pointed out
that Clarksville has more cases than us.
Connie Meneke, Executive Director of Clark County Youth Coalition- Gave a presentation of the
collections by court. The basic function is for all 92 counties, in the state have a local
coordinating commission for a drug free Indiana. We are responsible for writing the
comprehensive plan to address substance abuse for Clark County as well as to track and oversee
the allocations of the drug free community fund. Ms. Meneke gave a list of fees collected from
various courts. If convicted of a drug or alcohol offense you are charged an alcohol
countermeasures fee. 75% goes to the County and 25% goes to the State. 75% of the funds
collected are reallocated back into the community in four different areas. 25% is for the
operating expenses for the local coordinating council which is the Clark County Youth Coalition,
25% goes to preventative education which is the DARE program from the Jeffersonville Police
Department to other prevention programs in the community for drugs and alcohol, 25% goes to
treatment intervention programs all throughout the county, and 25% goes to law enforcement
and justice. So what you have are two documents, one is a print out of the drug free community
collections by court from 2006-2013. We have not done our 2014 numbers yet. You will notice
the trend that Jeff City Court has the highest collections. That is due to a couple things. One is
they were seeing a lot of the drug and alcohol cases. When you talk about the report from
Steve Stewart and other courts you know there is discretion, I'm not sure how that is used to
decide which cases go to other courts. So know that in the past and as always, we've seen the
highest collections be collected by Jeff City Court as well as how much money we have to
allocate. So when we look at collections and a court, I know that you guys are looking at the
numbers for how much it costs for the court, well I also want you to make sure you have all the
data and information. Because when we take away a court I know that argument has been
made that those court cases go elsewhere. Let's just focus on 2013, we collected $87,000.00 in
Jeff City Court. Clarksville Town $21,000.00. And you would think that since the City County
Building has the largest numbers that they would have the largest collections, we have tend to
have a problem with there. I have spent numerous hours doing research to say where is the
disconnect? I know the prosecutor's office is putting it on the pleas, but when it comes to
collections where is that money going? I know that last year Jeremy Mull and myself found like
$30,000.00 that was accredited to the wrong account. We know that with Jeff City Court we've
had a working relationship no matter what judge has been here and we've had the highest
collections in the Clerk's Office and we've done a good job collecting that money and I just want
you to be aware of what is collected in that court as well as this other nice six or seven page
sheet you can look at your leisure. It is the most current breakdown of allocations in our
community. So when we talk about total collections for Clark County we have anywhere from
$175-200,000.00 to reallocate back into the community and if you look at the collections, Jeff
City has always been responsible for collecting the most of that money. So when we talk about
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how much money we fund per category it just gives you a breakdown of what agency we fund
as well as what program it went for, how much is requested is always a lot more than we have
to allocate because the need in the community is larger than the funding we have available. So
when you are talking about courts and collections, the pluses and minuses, I just wanted to
make sure that you were aware of all this information as well.
Kevin Vissing, Clark County Council- I am not here on behalf of the council, just more myself. I
have been paying close attention to what has been going on with the City Court and I am
concerned about that for the County. As you know the County is in bad financial shape and this
would put more pressure on us. Courts were never meant to be a profit maker. It costs Clark
County millions to operate and I fear the courts will be overwhelmed. The county tax payers
have to cover these costs. You all will be paying for it through the Circuit Breakers in the long
run.
Brad Jacobs, attorney- We are talking money and efficiency. I am not here to persuade you but
I just wanted to give a boots on the ground perspective. These cases are being filed somewhere
even if the numbers are going down. They may not be showing up on this docket but those
people are standing somewhere in life and waiting to be dealt with. The problem with that is if
they are charged with a criminal violation in Clark Circuit 3 there is no money coming through
Jeff City Court. That's not Ken's fault that is that the prosecutor decided to file it wherever they
wanted to. The other problem is that infraction violation money goes to Indianapolis, if they are
filed as local ordinances that money stays in Jeffersonville. There is a huge treasure trove of
potential income for the city if some of these infractions were written as local ordinances. We
worked very hard to get the infraction deferral program for the city and it is a great program
because that money, even more of it stays local. If the court goes, that money is gone. Let's
talk about marijuana. We basically decriminalized marijuana charges, unless you are shooting at
someone, it is a misdemeanor. Which makes all these cases available for Jeff City Court. All
these cases that used to be felonies could potentially pour into Jeff City Court. More PUF fees,
more court costs, and more importantly, many of the first offense marijuana charges, if you
have a good defense attorney, they are getting you into the deferral program. That can be more
money pumped into the city. That is a huge opportunity that we are going to be missing out on.
The last part is efficiency. We wrap up cases in six to eight weeks, instead of six to eight
months. As the incoming Judge for Circuit 2 it is going to be a nightmare if we don't have this
option for our misdemeanors. Any time you get a new Judge in you know a good defense
attorney is going to file a CR4 Motion. For those of you who do not know what this is, it is a
speedy trial motion. Basically, you have to be tried within a year. Because of the congestion a
case clogging up the courts, will be dismissed. A bunch will be dismissed at the beginning of the
year. Thank you.
Ken Pierce, Judge of City Court- Good evening members of the council. Thanks for having me
and I want to congratulate the newly elected Judge Jacobs and Recorder Payne and
Commissioner Glover there. Congratulations guys. My first request actually is that I ask that we
table this issue. I learned about this on Friday afternoon around 3:30 when this young reporter
called me and asked me about you all shutting down the court. I told her I hadn't heard
anything about it and that I'd be glad to talk to her but I wanted to get some of my numbers
together. With it being that late I knew I couldn't get a hold of Ms. Deering that day and so I
called this morning at 8 or 8:30 and then again at like 10:30 or so and was told she would be out
for the day so I haven't been able to accumulate and look at these figures to be honest with you.
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So I would first ask that we table this issue so I have more time to do that. I will then proceed to
the Non Reverting Fund issue. This discussion has been about money. On September 25 I was
here before you discussing budget issues. I addressed the Non Reverting Fund. On September
26 I emailed each member of the council, and also Mr. Lewis, and had not heard back. The Non
Reverting Fund is somewhat different, it does allow me to spend money through a different
fund to assist and taken some pressure off of the general fund. I was wondering if this might be
an option rather than closing the court. I understand you may not have read that so I will hand
that out. Like I said, I know have had plenty of discussion about the PUF funds, I understand we
agree to disagree on that issue. I did bring this up at the last meeting and wanted to make sure
everyone was aware of that. One other thing, and Mr. Owen I believe you brought up that we
get cases from outside of Jeffersonville, and Mr. Lewis I believe agreed with that, with all due
respect that is no longer true. There is what is called a case allocation plan. In 2012 that was
exactly correct, we got cases from all over the county which really didn't bother me because
from those cases, as you can see, when caseload goes up, revenue goes up. So I was fine. I'd
take cases from anywhere in the whole county they wanted to give me. That all stopped in
2012, abruptly in late 2012, early 2013, when the State Police Department quit filing cases in
this court. And I don't know how that happened because it is actually the prosecutor's decision
but they weren't being booked in to the Sheriff's Office, when the State Troopers would book
them in, they weren't being sent to this court. I can't explain it, I can't control it, so the Judges
all got together and we created what is called a case allocation plan. Which then made sure that
if it is in Jeff, it would come to Jeff. Previously when Judge Weber and Judge Carmichael were
involved here, Judge Carmichael took all the marijuana and alcohol and Judge Weber took all
the thefts and conversions and so forth. We changed that up and so now any crime,
misdemeanor, occurring in Jeff comes to Jeff. I believe Prosecutor Stewart just sent out a memo
to that fact, I am going to say that was in October. One of the problems we are having, and the
case allocation plan did go into effect January 2014, I know the concern is now, why haven't the
case numbers gone up? Now what I did is take a cross section of a few days in September, and I
know you are wondering why I was so late and I can't say anything. Took me a while to figure
out what was going on, I looked around and tried to figure out why my cases were down and I
finally discovered that this was going on. I am handing you seven different dates of people who
were released from the jail to appear in Jeff City Court on their charges. Now, of these seven
days, there are confirmed 26 cases that were not filed in Jeff City Court. Battery, criminal
conversion, battery, battery, OWI, criminal conversion, OWI, and OWI cases are the ones that
actually do bring in the most revenue for this court. So I realized this is 26 cases over 7 different
court dates. We can all do the math on that. That is an extra 400-500 cases if you extrapolate it
that this court should be receiving. That is a large number. That is a substantial amount of
revenue. These cases were misfiled. I called newly elected Prosecutor Mull and I was a little bit
impatient so once I didn't hear from him I called Steve Stewart. Mr. Mull was the Chief at the
time, he was probably busy dealing with the murder trial, and by the time he got back with me I
had already spoken to Mr. Stewart. He then submitted a memo to all the prosecutor's that said
any case that any case arising out of the Jeff City limits comes to Jeff City Court. And we've
already starting seeing a little increase in those case numbers. And I'm guessing it will increase
greatly. I've already had contact with Mr. Mull, and he indicated to me, not only, and you can
check with him yourself, not only does he not like the idea of a 1,000 extra cases coming to the
county, because he feels they are overpopulated with case files, that he is going to file a case
allocation plan. So I would suspect that these numbers would definitely increase. Like I said, I
spoke to Prosecutor Stewart so I would expect these numbers to increase greatly. Now, one
other issue I'm having and I don't know how to explain this one either, is I did have a meeting
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with Councilperson Julius, Councilperson Glover, and Councilperson Samuel on this issue.
Councilperson Zastawny was away enjoying himself far more than he'd enjoy that meeting I'm
sure. At that meeting I was handed a sheet that gave me prospective costs of City Court. Now
you will see those costs include, not just the Court but also the Clerk's Office, which assists the
court. I won't say assist but it definitely has court related duties. Also there are some numbers
there that are x'ed out for insurance costs. However, I'm guessing the insurance costs around
$17,000.00 per employee. Now, with regard to Clarksville I think they are self-insured so I'm not
sure what the cost per employee is but I'll get to Clarksville in a minute. One concern I have is
I'm seeing that I am being attributed to the costs for a Court Clerk/Accounting Clerk. I'm not
sure exactly what that is. What I've put on the overhead now is, on the same line over here,
those numbers are completely off. It shows that in 2014-2015 that was budgeted $26,000.00
and the actual expenditures were $3,692.00 in 2014 and not even in the budget for the
following year, next year. Just on that discovery I suspect I would want to do some more
investigation into these numbers so that $26,000.00 plus $17,000.00 for this employee is
$43,000.00 we are suddenly attributing to the court and just from my investigation doesn't
seem to even exist. I don't know how that number got added in there. City Clerk Conlin stated
that was an error through Finance on the naming of our employees. I've asked repeatedly that
this Court Clerk/Accountant be changed to Deputy Clerk. And that was supposed to have been
reflected. President Julius asked if the amount was right. Clerk Conlin stated no because that
amount was what was being paid to Patty. So no, the titles and the numbers are not correct.
Vice President Gill stated that they did correct these during the budget workshop and also met
in a finance committee meeting over all this. Mr. Pierce stated that he was not making any
accusations, this is just what he was handed by Council President Julius and this was all he had
to work with because he couldn't get a hold of Ms. Deering today. We've had our issues but this
time I'm not attacking. Obviously if we're having a low caseload and ordinance violations are
down then I don't know that there is necessity for a Traffic Clerk. Perhaps that is something that
is not necessary as well. That's another $31,000.00 plus $17,000.00 that can come off, so we've
already addressed 90 something thousand dollars. President Julius stated that he did talk to the
Traffic Clerk today and that is not the only thing that individual does at this point. Mr. Pierce
states that he would like to respectfully ask why that is being attributed to the court. President
Julius states that it is all court related duties. And she instructed me that she was taking in not
only traffic violations but she was taking in and handling most of the money that comes through
the court. Mr. Pierce states that he understands that completely but if there is that much work
for two people and it has been condense down to this much, I don't know if one person can do it
all. I think it is worth exploring rather than closing down the court. Making it necessary to get
rid of all three employees. One employee is better than all three being gone. I say all three but
the one isn't there in the first place. So I think getting rid of one position might be better than
closing down the court. I wanted to thank everyone who appeared here in support of the court.
I truly appreciate it and once again I didn't have much time to finagle people and Mother Nature
didn't want to cooperate with me today either. Since these figures have already been presented
I am going to show them up here. It shows where the court was in 2006. It shows where the
court only contributed $65,000.00, and then in 2007 it was $41,000.00, and then in 2008, that's
my first year, I made it a point to make more contribution to that and made sure I collected that.
And as you can see it has increased every year since then. I know Ms. Meneke didn't have much
time to talk about those things but these are programs that, if it wasn't for the court, producing
that money and providing that money, you guys would have people out here with their hands
out. And Jeff Public Library would want money, the DARE program would want money, the Bliss
House would want money, the Child's Place would want money. These are places that are
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necessary services and clearly they exist here and people support them. These are places that
receive money as a result of the work the court does. Now, it doesn't save you general fund or
go back in your general fund per se but it certainly saves money out of your general fund for
discretionary spending for causes. So I in a sense, to me, it is more of a supplement to the
general fund because it is money over here that is going good places that is not going to have to
enter your all's budget. In response to caseloads, there are still 67 city and town courts in the
state of Indiana. Since I've been Judge I think it has only decreased by 5 or 6. So we have more
here. The majority of city and town courts are in, I'm not going to say metropolitan areas, but
certainly larger populated areas. Gary, Indianapolis, Jeffersonville; any of those areas because
the city courts tend to be more efficient. I'm in court six hours a week, everyone knows that.
And for a while I was going through 1400 cases a year at that pace. This here is a print out of
the courts, or actually the counties, in the state of Indiana. Shows you the number of judges
they have, the number of appointments to judicial offices which are magistrates essentially, and
then love in the jurisdictions. Which this court is. Now, I'm not going to cause everyone to go
through all of these but you can see, let's say Allen County for instance, has approximately
double the cases of Clark, maybe a little more than that. And they have 24 judicial officers. We
have eight. So we have 1/3 the judges and right at one half the caseload, maybe a little less
than that. You can go down this list and see all these courts here. Hamilton County has 13
judicial officers and 48,000 cases. Johnson County, right with us, right there, we have, I mean,
you can go all along the list. 53,000 they've got 14 judicial officers. There's a lot of those here
and of course we catch a lot of cases that are near Louisville. Marion we won't even want to
talk about that one. St. Joseph County they have 63,000 cases which is right at double us, ok.
They've got 18 judicial officers. Now, why do these other counties matter? Well, I'm using it as
an example obviously, the big issue is I read somewhere, I don't have it, I couldn't find guys, like
I said I'm trying to get the information just as fast as I can. Somewhere I was told or read that
we're one of the most dangerous cities in the state of Indiana. Well, I just had, I got a nine
month old daughter back there, that I'm not too happy about that. The Jeff City Judge has to
live in the city of Jeffersonville. Ok. I have officers back here supporting me, I have detectives,
they all have my cell phone number, my third date with my wife actually, we went to
Impellizari's before a U of L game and I had two of the Jeff City Detectives come by so I could
sign a search warrant for them. Ok. Now, do these officers really want to go to Sellersburg, to
Charlestown, or I mean, to find these other people? Judge Carmichael are the only two that live
in downtown Jeffersonville. Ok. I'm available for these officers constantly. I've signed four
warrants this week. In the past seven days, not this week. In the past seven days I've signed
four search warrants. Ok. So, I mean, this is something that is an accessibility issue. It is a
safety issue. Ok. When we have home invasions, when we have drug trafficking, when we have
sexual assault, ok. Sometimes time is of the essence for these search warrants. Sometimes
evidence is being damaged as we speak. They call Judge Pierce. Ok. They come to my house,
they know my dog's name, alright. They know where to sit while I read the warrant so they
don't talk to me. This is what we do. These are things that no one else knows about that we do.
Everyone knows I have this lunch program for middle school kids to try and encourage them not
to commit crimes, to try and encourage them to stay in school, ok. These are outreach
functions that this court can serve. No, it's not required, but why get rid of it when you can? I
mean, this is a second class city. We have a third branch of government here that costs
approximately one percent of the total budget. We have a judge here that is willing to sit here
and let these officers come to his house at 2 in the morning. Ok. That is something that we
need to preserve. We have a murder, four blocks from the county courthouse. There is a lot of
the blame going on as to why that guy got out. Let's be honest, the court is crowded, people fall
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through the cracks. Do we want to throw more misdemeanors in there and create more cracks?
So these felony offenders can come out there and come into our homes? I mean it is a public
safety issue. These misdemeanors stay here. They get dealt with here. If they keep committing
crimes, they go to see the big judges. Everyone knows I don't mind being called the little judge.
My staff calls the judicial conference for me, they call it judge camp. So be it. I get cases out of
their way so they can handle the bad guys. Alright. Guys that come in here, we have OWI's,
Public Intoxication, Marijuana, first time offenders typically. They want to keep committing
crimes, I have no problem sending them up the street there. But the crimes that occur, here, in
this court, certainly create the path for the judges there to handle the big, important cases. Ok.
They are not sitting there interfering with their docket. I just think it is huge. I called Judge
Carmichael today, or yesterday, I said Judge, have you talked to any of the council members,
have they even called you? She said she has heard from one. Ok. I've talked to several of you
but there is at least three or four people on this council that haven't even talked to me. In the
last fifteen years that this court has existed, Judge Carmichael served for fourteen of those. I
mean, if we are going to close a court down that's been open for, what, 54 years, since 1960. I
believe someone in your family had a hand in that, didn't they Mr. Vissing? So, if we have a
court that has existed that long, I mean, are we going to get rid of it over one bad year which
clearly I've shown that there are some questionable circumstances over how that occurred. And
I've made substantial efforts to try and correct them. Alright. So, I'm available to talk to any of
you all at any time you want. If we have to have a new county court, fine. It takes about two to
three years to get one of those to occur. Talk to Judge Grangier in Floyd County. A magister
court, exactly, you have to have an extra staff member. There are more crimes going on over
there so they have to have more prosecutors. Ok. There is more staff. There is more time.
There is more people going over there to the county building. There are parking problems over
there for the city of Jeff. I mean, this is a perfect opportunity for us to go ahead and say we are
a big city, we are a second class city, and we are going to behave as one and we are going to
take care of our residents. These are home grown crimes that we are going to take care of. The
officers know how to get them taken care of here, they know where to file them, they know
how to find their warrants, and it is just ten times easier to handle here. Plus we have the public
safety issue we can address. I am probably past my three minutes I'd assume. One question I'm
going to leave you with, I'd love an answer, but I'm just going to let it marinate there. Is, what
cost would make the court reasonable? When I came to see you guys in 2012 I gave you all a
document where I actually, through this court, with the numbers we had worked so hard to get,
we actually contributed $55,000.00 back to the community. I would have thought that
everyone would be as happy as can be about it and the next thing I know cases are vanishing out
of this court and so forth, I don't know how it happened, I don't want to get in to how I think it
happened. But certainly that was a nice little system we had going there. I'd like to get back
there, I don't know if we can. Nonetheless, we are sitting here now, what price are going to pay
on the abilities of the officers to actually sit there and get a warrant signed for a rape. When
evidence is vanishing by the second. What price are we going to put on a life that is in
downtown Jeff so that this guy or a similar guy doesn't slip through the cracks? I mean, what
price is there, I'm asking you guys and ladies, and just tell me the price and I'll try to sit down
with you and work on it. Find a way to get there. Anybody have any questions for me?
Councilperson Zastawny said the Clarksville numbers still intrigue him. It is important to
understand what the true cost is and I don't know where that number is. For me, this is
something I need to be comfortable with before I can make a decision. Councilperson Owen
stated that this is something that has been talked about among a few of us for a very long time.
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And I think it is important, I thought it was important to go ahead and put it on the agenda so
that we had meaningful discussion. And we are prompted to find those real numbers and make
a decision. Because the end of the year is coming and if we decide that we don't want to take
any action we've got to wait four more years for this to come up again. If Judge Pierce is correct
and there has been some misfiling's and those numbers can return to where they previously
were, that would be great. But it will take four years to find out if that is true or not. Mr. Pierce
stated that with all due respect Councilperson Owen, I spoke to the prosecutor this weekend
and he didn't know I was on the agenda. I think I talked to him Sunday morning. Councilperson
Sellers asked who he spoke to. Mr. Pierce stated he spoke to prosecutor elect Jeremy Mull on
Sunday morning. He stated he hadn't heard from any of the council members regarding the
issue and didn't know it was on the agenda. So I said Jeremy I think this is something you need
to know, how do you feel about that? Vice President Gill stated that they informed Steve
Stewart, who is the prosecutor. President Julius stated that he had a meeting with Steve
Stewart, Jeremy Mull was not there because he was dealing with the murder trial. I will tell you
Ken I have met with as many people as I can possibly meet with on this issue. I mean, I have
reached out to and tried to gather as much information on this as I can. I've been trying to get
case numbers, trying to get dollar amounts; and it is very confusing. It is a moving target too.
The other thing that I've been trying to put my hands on, and I can't for some reason, is why this
caseload is going down. Your caseload. Now I will tell you that when I went to talk to the
Prosecutor and he did run me that spreadsheet that we had on the board, everybody else's
numbers have gone up. Everybody. Your cases have gone down. My only reason for looking
into this is we have to be a fiscally responsible board here, and if there is something that is
gaining traction by losing money we need to find out why. That is our responsibility. And this is
a pattern that has continued through 2014. That is my concern. The case numbers went down
from 2012-2013 and then from 2013-2014. So what we need to do, what I was trying to find out
is why, when your costs are going up, your caseloads are going down, and that is concerning to
me. That is something that we as this council have to figure out and justify, and we have to
decide if that is going to right itself. I have talked to just about everybody about the court
members, what their responsibilities are, who they work for, what they do, what their mission
is; you and I had about an hour conversation last night, which followed up with me doing a little
more research. Which I really wanted to do today. But I did and one of the things you had told
me was if the court in fact closes you felt like a lot of those employees would stay. That is the
insinuation that I got. Mr. Pierce stated that he thought they would all go. Ms. Conlin would
lose two and I'd lose all three. If the court closes the employees don't stay so that cost does go
away. I have had conversations about this issue with more people than I care to discuss about.
Mr. Pierce stated that with all due respect even the paper he was given by him had that error on
it. I think we deserve to look at it. President Julius stated that he was not disagreeing with him,
all he was saying is that these are numbers that were given to us by Amy and we have to rely on
these numbers. We have to. I mean, if there is a mistake, you bring it to us, we will definitely
research it. Ms. Deering stated those numbers were straight out of the ledger, if someone's title
changed that would be addressed. Mr. Pierce stated that he was not directing anything over
here, I was just saying I saw this today and I was just scrambling the best I could without you
being here. You want to talk about blind, I didn't know what to do. 1 was trying the best I could
and when I saw that I thought this is something that needs to be addressed. And like I said, we
started off on these wrong numbers, then that is an issue. I don't have them but the sheet that
was up showing how the cases fall in this court, but that shows you that crime has not dropped.
But some other force, cases don't just go from 1300-1500 cases a year and then just drop off in
this court without some other intervention. President Julius stated that he never said crime
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dropped, I never said that. My point was Judge, that for some reason they are not bringing
them into your court. Mr. Pierce stated that you could see where these numbers show that
clearly the state police were not filing cases in my court. I lost about 500-600 cases, not just
OWI's, but possession of marijuana. When they pull someone over they may find suspended
license, marijuana, and may even find underage drinking. I don't know, ok. But all those 500-
600 cases were gone. Coincidentally I got pulled over four times by the state police. I don't
know what happened there. Vice President Gill stated to Mr. Pierce to not drag the Indiana
State Police into this. Just don't do it. Mr. Pierce said that he was just saying there was an issue
there. Clearly I got rid of that issue because now we have a case allocation plan. Ok. President
Julius stated that he thought they insinuated that the court cases were falling. And what that
reason was, maybe it is a personality thing. Mr. Pierce stated it certainly could be but now with
the case allocation plan he has been assured by the prosecutor that we won't have any
problems with that. I've shown you seven days where 26 cases were overlooked; filed
inappropriately. That amortizes out to another 400-500 cases that will hit this court and put us
up to 900-1000 more maybe cases. Do we want to put 1000 more cases in county and let that
guy slip through the cracks, let that guy go out there and endanger the citizens of Jeffersonville?
President Julius states that the numbers that he knows, and isn't for it or against it, I'm just
giving you the brass tacks, and numbers that I've got. When you say a couple thousand cases or
fifteen hundred cases we've only got in Jeff City Court right now a little over 400 for this year.
The other cases are already going over there. So what you are talking about is putting 400 more
over there. Mr. Pierce stated that just adding that 500 we had a murder occur this year out of a
misdemeanor court. That is something that we need to address. President Julius said that we
were talking numbers that is the only thing that I'm going back to, is that those thousand cases,
if you are basing that on 1400, those cases are already over there. They've gone somewhere.
So what you are talking about is another 400. But ultimately the extra 1000 cases caused a
mishap this year that no one wants to happen again. I mean, the court that these cases are
going to is the court where the gentleman that had murdered that woman came from. So I
mean if that happen I can't control it but certainly if we can pull 1000 cases out of that court
there is a chance that docket is easier to handle for the prosecutor, for the judge, for the staff,
for the county. And when they are being released into this community, this city, this is
something we need to address. President Julius asked if anyone else had any questions for the
judge. Vice President Gill stated that she had a comment. I have been looking at this for two
years now. I have talked with other council members on this issue and I know the Clerk and I
have gone to Indianapolis on several occasions and the bottom line is it is the same thing, when
you show the numbers, everybody has the same look on their face which is why? And I think
that is the question that even the Judge is asking. The thing is though, when you look at the
number at the end of the day we have to justify the tax dollars to our constituents to the
taxpayers of Jeffersonville. This needs to be introduced now, we can't wait another four years.
Nobody has really made the argument that we can turn this around and make it better for the
taxpayers. And I'm sorry but that is the way it has to be looked at, the bottom line is the tax
payers and the City of Jeffersonville. And I don't know, it is a tough one. I've tried two years
now and the past six months with you, Dennis, and talked to everyone I can think of and had
meetings and there's just no clear answers. Councilperson Sellers addressed Mr. Lewis and
stated that she knew Ms. Meneke mentioned these things, we've talked about them before
because we needed these different benefits for different places, Drug Court, and elsewhere.
But, if they go to a different court that is dictated by state code. Mr. Lewis states that the
money is still collected. Regardless of what court it goes through, the county has actually been
positive with their numbers. It is per state statute where the money goes. Saying City Court
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gives the most money isn't true. The County Council actually votes what entities to appropriate
that money to. So that list that she showed, is actually voted on by the County Council. It
comes from one pot of money. Councilperson Samuel says that what he took away from the
comments was that the collection rate from the City Court was higher and the concern was if it
goes to the county that the collection rate might not be as high. Councilperson Sellers stated
that the other issue brought up was that the county courts don't collect it correctly, but that is
not our issue or the City's. We have to do what is best for our taxpayers and the money will be
collected. Vice President Gill stated that she also mentioned the DARE program, I do know that
our DARE program runs off a grant and I know that we do money within the budget that covers
it because I do see it in the claims. It is a grant through the Youth Coalition. Councilperson
Owen states that in the spirit of keeping things rolling, this is a two-step process. Councilperson
Owen made the motion to APPROVE 2014 -OR -57 on the first and second reading with
Councilperson Sellers seconding, on a vote of 5-2-1. Councilperson Zastawny states that he was
voting no because he is not at a good comfort level without more information on the costs.
Councilperson Owen made a motion to APPROVE 2014 -OR -57 on the First Reading and Second
Reading, with Councilperson Sellers seconding.
Aye Nay
Councilperson Zastawny x
Councilperson Payne x
Councilperson Sellers x
Council Vice President Gill x
Council President Julius x
Councilperson Glover
Councilperson Owen x
Councilperson Samuel x
Abstain
After the roll call votes, the motion PASSES on the first reading by a vote of 5-2-1.
x
5. Les Merkely — PUBLIC HEARING ON Petition to Vacate All of Bowling Avenue Within the City
Limits of Jeffersonville, Indiana- As Described in Exhibit "A": Corporate Attorney Les Merkley
states that he believes this was approved by council at some point but fell through the cracks.
States they are just going to start over with the process to vacate a public way. City Clerk Conlin
stated that there was an ordinance passed in 2007 to vacate, and it was done by the council, but
it was never recorded. Jack Vissing, with Serenity House, discussing issues with Bowling Avenue
and why this needs to be done soon. President Julius opened the Public Hearing at 8:20 p.m.,
no further discussion, closed at 8:20 p.m.
5a. 2014 -OR -58 A Petition/Ordinance to Vacate Public Right -Of -Way in the City of Jeffersonville:
Councilperson Sellers made the motion to APPROVE 2014 -OR -58 with Councilperson Zastawny
seconding, PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
6. Les Merkley 2014 -OR- PUBLIC HEARING on Ordinance Changing the Zoning Map
Designation of a Certain Tract of Property Located at 2413 Utica Pike and Fully Described in
Attached Exhibit A From R1 to PD -R1: (taken off agenda)
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6a. 2014 -OR- Ordinance Changing the Zoning Map Designation for Certain Tract of Property
Located at 2413 Utica Pike and Fully Described in Attached Exhibit A from R1 to PD -R1
(Unfavorable Recommendation Plan Commission 10/28/14): (taken off agenda)
7. Kelly Phillips — CF -1 Real Property Compliance with Statement of Benefits Real Estate
Improvements (Flow International Corporation): (taken off agenda)
8. Amy Deering — 2014 -OR -59 An Ordinance of Additional Appropriation
(Public Hearing set for December 1, 2014): The lease is $320,000.00 made in January and June,
but in the lease there was $70,000.00 netted out instead of paying into so that is three years of
catching up. So we did not budget for this. We were needing $500,000.00 for the repair of an
antique fire truck. Health Insurance fund is getting low, so I was going to ask for $500,000.00.
Councilperson Samuel made the motion to APPROVE 2014 -OR -59 on the First and Second
Reading with Vice President Gill seconding, PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
CITY COUNCIL ATTORNEY REPORT: None at this time.
DEPARTMENT HEAD REPORTS: None at this time.
PUBLIC COMMENT: None at this time.
COUNCIL COMMENTS:
Councilperson Smith: None at this time.
Councilperson Zastawny: There is going to be a grand re -opening and a ribbon cutting for CAPS, it is
going to be at America's Place on Saturday, 10:30 a.m. Building 252.
Councilperson Payne: None at this time.
Councilperson Sellers: None at this time.
Vice President Gill: Wanted to remind everyone that there is a meeting to discuss the downtown
parking and traffic flow which is set for Wednesday, November 19 from 6:30-7:30 at the Preservation
Station. The DARE Program provides a service that is very important and effective so I want it to be
supported and make sure it continues. President Julius stated that there was a Homeless Meeting at the
library at this same time.
Councilperson Glover: None at this time.
Councilperson Owen: Congratulations to Councilperson Payne and Councilperson Glover on the
elections. I hate to see you go but I wish you well in all future endeavors. There were several other
issues brought up in tonight's discussion of City Court and I took several notes and hopefully we can
address some of those points at our next meeting when we come up for a final reading on this. I
appreciate the ability to keep the process going. Regardless of what we decide in the end, yes or no, I
think it is important to keep the process going. Thank you.
Councilperson Samuel: None at this time.
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President Julius: A few of us went out and looked at the older ladder fire truck that we have on reserve
and we are going to send it to Indianapolis to get quite a bit of work done. When the fire truck wrecked
this summer it was our newer truck and it was going to be our backup. This truck will be sent up and
there will be quite a bit of work done. It could easily cost over $100,000.00 to retro fit the truck. It
would be a good backup truck. ON the fire truck payments we have, we are really close on some of
these payments and I think if we can we should pay some off. It is going to take close to a year to get a
truck built. We will need to have a truck built, just want to make sure you are all aware of what is going
on. If we can see a way to use leftover funds to pay off a couple trucks at the end of the year, we
should. This will be a million dollar truck.
ADJOURNMENT:
Councilperson Owen made a motion to ADJOURN at 8:29pm, with Councilperson Samuel seconding,
PASSING on a vote of 8-0.
APPROVED BY:
ATTESTED BY:
Vicki Con Fri; t %�Cl. y(
Dennis Julius, P • sident
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